Black comedy | Cagey Films

Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on June 11, 2025June 14, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Office drone Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) has heroic fantasies in Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985)

Criterion’s new edition of Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece Brazil (1985) presents an impressive new 4K restoration which highlights the dense, endlessly inventive production design of Gilliam’s blackly comic dystopian vision of a world run by an oppressive but utterly incompetent bureaucracy, even more pertinent now than it was in the middle of Reagan’s presidency. The three-disk, dual-format set includes a comprehensive history of the production and the controversy surrounding Gilliam’s fight to get the film released, as well as the truly awful alternate “Love Conquers All” cut put together by Universal in a misguided attempt to make the film “more commercial”.

Dipping another toe into the online stream, part two

Posted on March 19, 2025March 19, 2025 by Kenneth George Godwin

Nicholas Cage goes full Nic Cage in Longlegs (2024)

My recent streaming seems to lean heavily into horror, with a few animated movies to lighten the tone.

The 5th Hong Kong International Film Festival, part nine

Posted on December 14, 2024December 14, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

An office drone (Donald Sumpter) suspects that his life isn't what it seems in Paul Bamborough's The Tom Machine (1980)

In this, the longest section of my notes from the Fifth Hong Kong International Film Festival, I cover the English-language films from Britain, Australia and the U.S., which include documentaries, mainstream movies, films about sexuality and toxic chauvinism, class conflict and ennui.

Pete Walker, master of British exploitation

Posted on October 23, 2024October 25, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

The threat to Marianne (Susan George) comes from inside her family in Pete Walker's Die Screaming, Marianne (1971)

Two new box sets from 88 Films provide an opportunity to re-visit the work of Pete Walker, arguably the best exploitation filmmaker working in England from the late-’60s to the end of the ’70s. The Flesh and Blood Show collects the seven horror movies which are his best-known work, while the Pete Walker Sexploitation Collection includes his first playful features which grew out of years of making sex loops as well as his final film of the ’70s in which the sex takes on a much darker tone.

Tod Solondz’s Happiness (1998): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on September 18, 2024September 16, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Bill Maplewood (Dylan Baker) has a frank talk about sex with his son Billy (Rufus Read) in Tod Solondz's Happiness (1998)

The cultural climate has changed in the quarter-century since the theatrical release of Tod Solondz’s second feature and it’s virtually impossible to imagine Happiness (1998) being made today. Controversial at the time, it seems even more explosive now. Its comedy of dysfunctional relationships is still pertinent, but its cool, even empathetic treatment of paedophilia and mass shootings forces the audience to engage in ways which bypass habitual responses and recognize the human element in monsters.

Late winter 2023: Vinegar Syndrome and partners

Posted on April 12, 2023May 2, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Karen (Tara Chung) goes mad by the sea in Roberta Findlay's A Woman's Torment (1977)

Emerging from the depths of winter, I glance back at a motley collection of movies watched over the past few months — this batch all from Vinegar Syndrome: sleaze, horror, sex and violence, war, comedy, action, fantasy and lo-fi science fiction, plus the first feature I’ve ever seen from Tunisia.

Vinegar Syndrome closes out 2022

Posted on December 28, 2022December 27, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Fong Sai Yuk (Willie Chi) faces a Manchu army in Ringo Lam's Burning Paradise (1994)

Vinegar Syndrome wraps up 2022 with a very mixed bag of releases, including no less than four grubby, bottom-of-the-barrel slasher movies, a dynamic Hong Kong martial arts movie, and loaded special editions of Freeway (1996), Matthew Bright’s reworking of Little Red Riding Hood as serial killer black comedy, and Rowdy Herrington’s red-neck action-romance Road House (1989).

The future crimes of David Cronenberg

Posted on June 15, 2022June 14, 2022 by Kenneth George Godwin

Artist Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) rests after a surgical performance in David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future (2022)

David Cronenberg returns to his roots with a new movie which borrows its title and major themes from his early experimental feature Crimes of the Future (1970); once again nature responds to destructive human activity by accelerating the mutability of the body. This time Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen) transforms his continually mutating body into an object of performance art, infusing the body horror with a powerful note of black comedy in the director’s best film since Crash (1986).

Alex Cox’s Walker (1987): Criterion Blu-ray review

Posted on May 11, 2022June 9, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

William Walker (Ed Harris) sees American expansionism as a mission from God in Alex Cox's Walker (1987)

Criterion’s Blu-ray release of Alex Cox’s masterpiece Walker (1987) revives this deconstruction of America’s self-mythologizing at a time when its themes are more pertinent than ever; imperial attacks on domestic and foreign societies driven by a toxic mixture of religious self-righteousness and unfettered capitalist greed have been on the rise for decades and Walker traces the roots back to the mid-19th Century doctrine of Manifest Destiny.

Holiday viewing

Posted on January 27, 2021December 26, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Tasya Voss (Andrea Riseborough)'s identity begins to disintegrate in Brandon Cronenberg's Possessor (2020)

Yet another mixed bag of viewing from classic westerns to Asian fantasy/horror, black comedies and science fiction, musicals and monsters.

Tag: Black comedy